21st Century Blog

Hello and welcome to the 21st Century Driving Blog

Here we will post news and items that will interest those of you taking driving lessons in the local area(Check out our Area Coverage page)Why not click the RSS feed ?? That way you'll get all the updates and offers and make sure you don't miss anything

Very shortly we will be offering Automatic Driving lessons alongside our well established manual lessons in our striking red ford focus. As the world moves forward with changes in the fuels and technology, were are introducing an automatic car to the school, so we can accommodate everyone, whatever their preference

Our learners are advised that these are to be used to reinforce what we practice on lessons, and are not designed as standalone learning tools

We will include the 2 manoeuvres not now tested, namely Left Reverse and Turn in the Road as these are practical skills every driver should have for day to day use when turning the car around is required

The driving test will change on Monday 4 December 2017. The three main changes to the driving test will be:

1. Following directions from a satnav for approximately 20 minutes

2. Reversing manoeuvres - out go 3 point turns and reversing around a corner. They are replaced by forward parking and reversing our of a bay, and pulling up on the right-hand side of the road, reversing back 2 car lengths, then rejoining traffic

3. A show me question may be asked while you are driving

1. INDEPENDENT DRIVING and using a Satnav

The independent driving part of the test used to last around 10 minutes. This part of the test will be made longer, so it’ll last around 20 minutes - roughly half of the test

During the independent driving part of the test, most candidates will be asked to follow directions from a sat nav. The examiner will provide the sat nav (a TomTom Start 50) and set it up. You won’t need to set the route - the examiner will do this for you. So, it doesn’t matter what make or model of sat nav you practice with

That being said, we have conducted our own research and have decided to use this model on lessons so that you become familiar with it and it's instructions

The ‘reverse around a corner’ and ‘turn-in-the-road’ manoeuvres will no longer be tested, but you will still be taught them though not to the same level as previously needed. These manoeuvres are often used in real life situations and it would not be good practice to leave these out of your training

You’ll be asked to do one of 3 possible reversing manoeuvres:

1. Parallel park at the side of the road

2. Park in a bay - either driving in and reversing out, or reversing in and driving out (the examiner will tell you which you have to do)

3. Pull up on the right-hand side of the road, reverse for 2 car lengths and rejoin the traffic flow

3. ANSWERING A SAFETY QUESTION WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING

The examiner will ask you 2 vehicle safety questions during your driving test - these are known as the ‘show me, tell me’ questions.

You’ll be asked the:

‘tell me’ question (where you explain how you’d carry out a safety task) at the start of your test, before you start driving

‘show me’ question (where you show how you’d carry out a safety task) while you’re driving - for example, showing how to wash the windscreen using the car controls and wipers

Pass mark, length of test and cost not changing

The pass mark has stayed the same. So, you’ll pass your test if you make no more than 15 driving faults and no serious or dangerous faults.

The examiner still marks the test in the same way, and the same things will still count as faults.

The overall time of the driving test hasn’t change. It will still take around 40 minutes.

The driving test cost will also stay the same

Why the changes have been made

Road collisions are the biggest killer of young people. They account for over a quarter of all deaths of those aged between 15 and 19

DVSA wants to make sure that training and the driving test reduce the number of young people being killed in collisions.

These changes have been made because

Most fatal collisions happen on high-speed roads (not including motorways) - changing the format of the test will allow more of these types of roads to be included in driving test routes

52% of car drivers now have a sat nav - DVSA wants new drivers to be trained to use them safely

Research has shown that new drivers find independent driving training valuable - they can relate it to driving once they’ve passed their test